♪♪
Up next, a police officer's life
is forever changed
by a young woman's m*rder.
It's as if you live that scene
over and over and over again.
There's evidence
found with the victim,
but no technology
to properly test it.
The case stalls
for nearly two decades
until a new device
designed for food safety
finally exposes a k*ller.
This was kind of like
the nail in the coffin.
It is the most amazing thing
I've ever seen
in my law-enforcement career.
♪♪
♪♪
About two weeks before
Christmas in 1995, Todd Bonner,
a patrolman in Utah's
Wasatch County Sheriff's Office,
got the kind of call
all policemen dread.
A farmer found a corpse
next to a river on his property.
This was a body found nude.
You knew deep down
in the back of your mind
that this was going to be
a different type of a case.
The victim,
a female in her late teens,
perhaps her early 20s,
had been beaten to death
and left along an isolated
stretch of the Provo River.
The scene was very graphic.
You knew that she had taken
one heck of a b*ating.
She had... She had suffered
quite a bit.
♪♪
No conventional m*rder
w*apon was found at the scene,
but it didn't take long
to figure out
what had been used
to k*ll this young woman.
Six bloody rocks were found
near the body.
The rocks ranged
in different sizes.
We did come across one.
Don't want to say
it was a small rock,
but it was small enough
that you could grab
hold of it with your hand,
and it appeared to have
a handprint or fingerprint.
The rocks told
detectives straight away
that they were dealing
with what's known
as a crime of opportunity.
For whatever reason,
whatever motivated that,
he grabbed the nearest thing
that he thought he could k*ll
someone with
and just b*at her for
a considerable period of time
until she d*ed.
Some rocks were as large
as a small microwave
that you might see on
someone's kitchen counter...
very heavy,
were used to very angry,
very brutal.
The victim's clothes were gone.
There was no identification.
And besides the rocks,
there were few clues
at the scene.
The crime looked to be
sexually motivated.
But the autopsy threw that
into question.
There was not evidence
of a sexual as*ault.
There was evidence
of a sexual encounter.
That encounter
may have been consensual.
DNA was recovered
from the victim's r*pe kit,
but this was 1995,
only eight years since DNA was
first used to convict someone.
Most states, including Utah,
were years away from using DNA.
There was a lot
of forensic technology
that exists in the world
that is either too expensive
or too limited
to be used by law enforcement
on a day-to-day basis.
Was it possible
the victim knew her k*ller?
A strange clue found not far
from the body
made it seem likely.
The only other thing
that was found at the scene
was a pair of black socks,
and they were about maybe
and they were just placed
neatly on a rock.
These socks weren't
haphazardly discarded.
They were folded so neatly
that someone,
either the k*ller or his victim,
had taken time to do this.
Why?
No one knew.
It was just strange.
♪♪
Despite the absence
of identification,
the victim had some
distinctive tattoos.
Images were released
to local media.
Almost immediately, two men,
a Salt Lake City cab driver
and the victim's boyfriend,
called police.
He identified her
as Tracy Marie Beslanowitch,
and that Tracy
was his girlfriend
and that they had moved
from Spokane, Washington,
about five to six months
prior to that to Salt Lake City.
Todd Bonner placed
a call to deliver the grim news
to the victim's stepfather
in Washington State.
And when he did, this already
strange case got even stranger.
Tracy's stepfather said
she couldn't be dead
because he had just seen her.
He told me that
Tracy Beslanowitch
lived a couple of doors
down from him,
and he went to check
to make sure that she was there.
I waited on the phone
while he was checking,
and came back and said,
"You have the wrong person."
What the hell was going on?
♪♪
♪♪
When a 17-year-old woman
was found naked
and beaten beyond recognition,
local detectives were determined
to fight for a victim
who evidence showed had clearly
tried to fight for herself.
She put up one heck
of a struggle,
blocked a lot of blows
with her fingers,
a way that the hide
had been ripped off
of each one of her fingers.
She struggled all the way
through it.
Her boyfriend
and a local cab driver
identified the victim as a young
woman named Tracy Beslanowitch.
But Tracy's stepfather,
who lived 700 miles away
in Washington State,
told Utah police their victim
could not be Tracy Beslanowitch.
When Mr. Beslanowitch told me
that his daughter Tracy
was in Spokane,
I mean, it's just like,
"Oh, my gosh,
what's going on here?"
The answers
soon became apparent.
The victim in Utah
was using a false name,
the name of her younger sister,
Tracy.
The victim's real name
was Krystal Beslanowitch,
and she was a young woman
with a troubled past.
Krystal was a prost*tute.
Krystal would use the street
name Baby Tracy or Tracy.
And we believe that
she would do that
to try and throw off police
if she was arrested.
Krystal's boyfriend,
Chris, was her pimp.
The two had been living
and working together for years,
and they recently moved
to Salt Lake City.
Krystal was the breadwinner
in their relationship.
♪♪
It was a sordid, degrading life,
one this young couple
was desperate to escape.
Karen Mathis,
herself a former prost*tute,
worked the same streets
as Krystal.
We didn't care about ourselves.
How can you?
We didn't know any better.
I Why Krystal came
at such an early age?
She's had something happen
to her in her past.
This is not something
that we wake up one day and say,
"We want to go do this."
When detectives learn that
Krystal turned to prostitution
because she had no other way
to support herself,
the case they were determined
to solve became deeply personal.
I could not comprehend having
one of my own daughters
going through this.
You're not supposed to
take things personal,
but I don't know
how you don't take it personal
one way or another.
Krystal and Chris
didn't have a lot of money.
They didn't have a car.
They stayed in a seedy motel
in downtown Salt Lake City,
and Krystal worked her trade
in a very small area of town.
We worked
all day long out there.
You know, you had to call in
and check in to your man
and tell him
how much money you had.
And sometimes they'd say
come home
or they would take you
out to dinner,
or then they would tell you,
"Go back to work."
That's how it was every day.
♪♪
She would never leave
a seven-block radius.
That was just her working area.
This raised questions
for detectives.
If Krystal only traveled
on foot, how did her body end up
nearly 50 miles away
from downtown Salt Lake City?
There's thoughts going
through the investigator's mind
that maybe she was kidnapped
and brought up here.
Or maybe she went
along willingly.
Maybe this individual
promised her money, more money,
maybe promised her dr*gs
or something else
to get her to go
this far away from Salt Lake.
Since Krystal's
boyfriend, Chris,
didn't have access to a car,
police eliminated him
as a suspect.
Now police question
the cab driver
who also identified Krystal.
His name was
Clarence Stonehocker,
and he was one
of Krystal's customers.
Clarence Stonehocker stated
that he knew this young lady,
that her name was Tracy,
that he was a cab driver,
that he would give her rides
whenever she needed.
Stonehocker, 45 years old,
was married and had children.
He worked at a local high school
and had no history of v*olence.
He seemed to be, you know,
stable, family man.
Not what we'd think of
as a brutal k*ller.
That is,
until detectives dug into
his background.
♪♪
Krystal Beslanowitch's m*rder
was deeply disturbing to people
on both sides of the law.
Krystal did not deserve
to die like that.
I don't care who we are,
what we were doing
at the time in our lives.
We don't deserve to die
like that.
I don't blame her
for what she was doing.
She knew what she had to do
in order to stay alive.
Krystal had a lot of clients,
but one, Clarence Stonehocker,
a cab driver known
to many local prostitutes,
went to the top
of the suspect list.
A lot of cab drivers
were friends with us.
They saved us a lot of times.
We would jump in the cab
to get away from the police.
So, yeah, that would happen.
Clarence told police
his relationship with Krystal
went well beyond sex for money.
Clarence
wanted to marry Krystal.
Clarence loved Krystal
with all of his heart.
If he couldn't have Krystal,
no one could.
But Krystal
made her living selling sex.
Was it possible Clarence
became jealous and got violent?
I believe that he was more
obsessed than in love with her.
I mean, when you make
a statement
of, "If I can't have her,
no one else
is going to have her,"
that's a true obsession.
That's more than being in love
with someone.
Another clue
that could possibly link
Clarence to the crime
was the socks,
something that had
baffled investigators
from the very first day.
They were identified
as being hers.
Someone had taken time
to fold them neatly
and place them near the scene.
Could Krystal have done it?
Not likely.
The evidence showed
she was fighting for her life.
But if the k*ller
had done it, why?
Many of Krystal's friends
and clients
had a possible answer.
We know that Krystal had one way
in which
she controlled her environment
when she was working,
and that was that
she kept her socks on.
And so whatever went on
between them,
she had kept her socks on
during the sexual encounter.
People who knew her
said this habit never varied,
and Clarence,
as a regular client,
would almost certainly
know about this.
She wore her socks all the time,
even when she was doing tricks
with a John.
There was a lot of red flags
with Clarence.
Was it possible
Krystal's k*ller used the socks
to toy with her
before the m*rder,
or as an exercise
in humiliation afterward?
I think that the socks
were removed by the suspect.
Yes, I don't believe that
she removed the socks at all,
due to the fact that she liked
to keep the socks on
at all times.
Investigators
attempted to match Clarence
to what little evidence
they had.
Utah's state crime lab
still wasn't testing for DNA,
but private labs were.
We had to talk long and hard
to Sheriff Kenny Van Wagoner
at the time to try and
obtain some extra money
to get these rocks tested,
because the only way
to test for DNA
was through
private organizations.
We spent well over $15,000
out of our budget.
In 2008, the m*rder weapons,
the bloody rocks that had been
sitting in storage since 1995,
were sent to Sorenson Forensics,
a private lab.
Rocks might have a very rough
and porous exterior,
and they also might have
a large surface area.
When you're swabbing a rock,
you're not really getting
into all those crevices.
This method gave detectives
the breakthrough
they'd been waiting for.
A partial male genetic profile
was recovered
from one of the rocks.
We were ecstatic.
This was more than what we'd had
in the past almost 15 years
since the crime had taken place.
As a partial profile,
it wasn't of much use
in the national CODIS database,
but analysts could do
a direct analysis
against
Clarence Stonehocker's DNA.
And when they did,
they got a result
that sent the case
in a direction
no one had anticipated.
♪♪
When a partial DNA profile
was recovered from the rocks
used to k*ll
Krystal Beslanowitch,
detectives were all but certain
it would match
their chief suspect,
Clarence Stonehocker.
I wanted him.
I was convinced that Clarence
was the man that did this.
I was totally excited.
I was ecstatic.
I thought, "Wow, you know, this
is going to be our big break."
The DNA was compared
to Clarence's DNA,
and to the utter shock
of investigators,
it didn't match.
It broke my heart.
I was sure that it was him.
At that point, I did not think
that it would ever be solved.
Clarence was cleared
and was never charged
in connection
with Krystal's m*rder.
But while the case
came to a standstill,
forensic technology
kept moving forward.
In 2010, investigators learned
of a new piece of DNA technology
called M-Vac that wasn't
even designed to solve crimes.
The M-Vac was originally created
to collect microbiologic
material, like pathogens,
off of food surfaces.
Could a device used
for food safety
find Krystal's k*ller?
The M-Vac developers thought so.
It works as a wet vacuum
collection system.
It's simply like
a carpet cleaner.
It sprays down
a sterile solution,
it applies vacuum,
it creates turbulence,
and that collects the DNA that
couldn't be collected before.
Using an M-Vac is preferable
when you're trying to get DNA
from a rock,
in that it's going to soak into
those porous nooks and crannies
of that rock
and collect the DNA
that might be deposited there.
Amazingly, with this method,
analysts were able to obtain
more than 40 times
the material needed
for a standard DNA profile.
At about the same time,
the Utah state crime lab
finally got on board with DNA.
Analysts there tested
the 15-year-old sample
from Krystal's r*pe kit.
Both samples,
the one from the r*pe kit
and the one
from the m*rder weapons,
were a match
to a so-far unidentified man.
The CODIS DNA database
found him in Florida.
It was like someone
totally brand new.
We had no idea who this guy was.
His name was
Joseph Michael Simpson.
He was 46 years old.
In the 1980s, he served time
for k*lling someone
in a jealous rage over a woman.
He stabbed the man 13 times
and left the Kn*fe in his body
and ran away, and
told law enforcement
that the man must have
fallen on the Kn*fe.
Simpson was paroled
in April of 1995
and found work
as an airport shuttle driver
with a regular route
that took him right past
the area where
Krystal's body had been found.
Maybe he was on his way back
to the airport
when he noticed Krystal
on the side of the road
walking to
the convenience store.
I truly believe
that he knew Krystal prior.
She was comfortable with him.
And so she trusted him to be
able to get in the car.
♪♪
Because
the M-Vac technology was so new
and because the DNA
from the rocks was so old,
investigators wanted
to make sure
their case against Simpson
was airtight.
To do that, they needed
a fresh DNA sample.
So they trailed Simpson,
and one day saw him discard
a cigaret butt.
Tests match DNA from that butt
to DNA from the rocks,
from Krystal's r*pe kit,
and from Simpson's prior arrest.
Right now, you're under arrest.
I get chills
just thinking about it.
Can you reach back?
I don't know how to describe it.
♪♪
It's like waiting for something
that you didn't think
would truly ever happen,
and then it's handed to you
on a silver platter.
It was like...
a little kid at Christmas,
I guess.
Prosecutors believe
Simpson frequented
local prostitutes
and that he and Krystal
had prior sexual encounters.
On the night of the m*rder,
he saw her walking
along the street
in downtown Salt Lake City.
She knew him
and got into his vehicle.
They drove to the farm
outside of town.
Since his DNA was found
in her r*pe kit
and there was no sign of r*pe,
investigators believe
the two had
a consensual sexual encounter.
After this, something...
no one knows what...
sent Simpson into
a homicidal rage.
He grabbed rocks,
the closest weapons at hand,
and b*at Krystal to death.
But he couldn't have guessed
that, nearly 20 years later,
the M-Vac would recover
tiny bits of his DNA
caught in the crevices
of those rocks
and expose him
as Krystal's k*ller.
When you have a new
technology that can do things
that prior technologies
couldn't,
one of the first places
that always gets used
is the Hail Mary case,
the case that has sat
for a long time
and hasn't had
any progress in it.
And the Krystal Beslanowitch
case is one of those cases.
As for the socks being
folded so near the site,
to this day, Simpson
has refused to explain it.
Just one more thing
that makes no sense
in an utterly senseless case.
Joseph has
an anger problem with women.
Joseph has an anger problem,
period.
I don't know,
but I know he hates women.
In September of 2016,
Joseph Simpson was found guilty
of aggravated m*rder
and was sentenced to life
without parole.
For Todd Bonner, who worked
the case for most of his career,
justice for Krystal
made it all worthwhile.
For every officer that was
involved with us
through this whole thing,
it was closure.
It was closure to my wife
because I'd go home
and I would vent to her,
you know, about different things
or vent to my family
one way or another.
Probably against the rules
a little bit, but you do it.
And Krystal became
part of my family,
whether I liked it
or not, every day...
she was there.
And if a story this brutal
can lead to something positive,
at least one good thing
came from this tragedy.
Karen Mathis was so shocked
by her friend's m*rder
that she turned her life around.
Krystal took me off the streets.
Krystal showed me
that I can live on.
Krystal will always live in me.
There's not a day that goes by
that I forget about her.
I'm lucky.
I'm blessed.
So blessed.
♪♪